


a tight grip on reality

by shineyma



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Alternate Universe - Different Framework Universe (Marvel), F/M, Grief/Mourning, Season/Series 04
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-20
Updated: 2020-12-20
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:06:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28184376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shineyma/pseuds/shineyma
Summary: The Framework has some surprises in store for Jemma...and so does the real world.
Relationships: Jemma Simmons/Grant Ward, Will Daniels/Jemma Simmons
Comments: 8
Kudos: 72





	a tight grip on reality

**Author's Note:**

> Ta-da! WEEK FIFTY FREAKING ONE, Y'ALL!!!! There's just ONE MORE week to go and then I'm FREE!!!!
> 
> I've been trying to write this stupid fic all year. I hope y'all enjoy.
> 
> Thanks for reading and, as always, please be gentle if you review! <3

Molly has always been a morning person.

It’s not because she tries (or even particularly _wants_ ) to be. She just is. Every single morning, rain or shine or summer freaking vacation, she’s wide awake at five am. All trying to get back to sleep gets her is frustration, so she’s learned to just roll with it.

Before Dad died, it wasn’t such a big deal. He was a morning person, too—although he actually had reasons for being up so early—and she always loved having that time with him. Half her memories of him are of before sunrise: talking about school or her friends or whatever while he made her breakfast and listened intently.

It’s harder now. Getting up and facing the empty apartment every morning, making her own breakfast and eating alone, staring at the chair where he used to sit…She really wishes she could sleep in.

Or that Mum was a morning person. She’s tried to be, especially right after Dad died, but the fact is, she just works way too many crazy hours. After the tenth time she dozed off over their shared breakfast, Molly asked her to stop trying.

These days, Mum settles for dragging herself out of bed at 6:53 to say goodbye and make sure Molly gets off to school okay—and even that’s an obvious struggle for her.

Which is why Molly is so surprised to walk into the kitchen early Tuesday morning and find Mum there, fully dressed and staring blankly at the refrigerator. The _closed_ refrigerator.

“Mum?”

Mum starts and turns. She’s weirdly pale in the kitchen’s warm light. “Molly.”

She says it weird, almost like a question—like _Molly_ is the one who’s supposed to be asleep right now.

“Is everything okay?” she asks, giving Mum a subtle once-over. “You look kinda…”

“Oh! Yes, yes, I’m fine,” Mum says. Her smile is painfully fake. “I was just—” she glances over her shoulder—“looking at the postcard.”

Right. The postcard.

It’s a tacky little thing: the Paris skyline distorted by a too-bright filter, overlaid with the words WISH YOU WERE HERE in obnoxious neon letters. The I in wish is a tiny Eiffel Tower—ridiculous and jarring when the _real_ Eiffel Tower is just below it, infinitely more detailed and much less pink. Molly is sick at the sight of it.

Still, it’s better than what’s on the back—a carelessly scrawled _Dearest Molly, Paris is fun, hope you’re well, love Dad_ —and so when she stuck it on the fridge, she did so with the skyline and the letters and the touristy mess of it all facing outwards.

“Does it bug you?” She crosses her arms over her stomach, defensive and unsettled and not really sure why. “I thought you’d be happy I didn’t just throw this one away.”

To be honest, Molly would hate the postcard even if it were the most tasteful piece of mail in history. She hates that her birth father sends her anything at all, hates that he has the nerve to call himself _Dad_ when she has—had—a real Dad, an amazing one who used to come to all her recitals and meets, who ate breakfast with her every morning even when he had more important things to do.

She hates that she got two fathers and lost the better one.

But Mum gets weird about Molly’s birth father and always looks so _sad_ when Molly expresses her desire to have nothing to do with him ever. So when the postcard came, Molly put it up—right there next to the take-away menus and her most recent report card and the picture from the last family holiday they took, two months before Dad died.

It was a sop to Mum. She wasn’t expecting her to look so…so whatever this is about it.

“No,” Mum says. “No, of course it doesn’t bother me. I’m glad you didn’t throw it away.” (She doesn’t _look_ glad.) “It’s just—it’s just rather brief, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, well, that’s Ian for you,” she shrugs. “Doesn’t matter what country he’s in, he’s still a dick.”

If she’s expecting the language to distract Mum out of her weird mood, she’s disappointed. Mum only blinks and turns back to the postcard.

“Ian,” she says to herself. She takes it off the fridge and studies the back of it, mouth pulled in tight at the corners. “He signed it Dad.”

“He…always signs it Dad,” Molly says—slowly, a little carefully, because Mum knows this. Mum has very kindly and patiently sat through several of Molly’s rants on the subject. “Since he is, again, a dick.”

“Hm.”

Molly’s not gonna lie, it’s starting to freak her out how _out_ of it Mum seems. “Seriously, Mum, are you okay? Did something happen? Did—Is it—?”

She can’t even ask. Luckily, she doesn’t have to.

“No,” Mum interrupts—and then again, more firmly, “No. Everything’s fine, Molly. Why don’t you go get dressed and I’ll make some breakfast, yes?”

“Uh, yeah. Sure. Okay.”

Everything is definitely _not_ fine. Mum being up this early, acting like there’s something weird about Ian being Ian, offering to make breakfast instead of going back to bed? Molly heard her come in like three hours ago; she’s gotta be exhausted, and yet…

So, yeah. Molly goes and gets dressed, as ordered, but she also grabs her phone and shoots off a quick text.

_Mum’s being weird. Can you come over?_

As expected, it’s barely thirty seconds before she gets a reply—an uncharacteristically short _On my way_ that’s nonetheless reassuring.

And it’s a good thing she does, because without that reassurance—without the promise of help on the way—she doesn’t think she’d survive breakfast. Mum doesn’t just keep being weird, she _escalates_ it.

Over eggs and toast (because apparently Mum’s forgotten Molly doesn’t like eggs; she pushes them aside without comment and sends another text beneath the table), Mum asks about school. Typical Mum question, but she asks it all wrong.

She doesn’t complain about Molly’s principal or the head of the PTA, who she’s been feuding with since Molly got uninvited from the woman’s daughter’s birthday party in kindergarten. She doesn’t tease Molly about her (totally nonexistent!) crush on her Spanish tutor. She doesn’t even make her disapproving _hm_ noise when Molly mentions—testingly—that she has plans with Elsie this afternoon.

Something is really, really wrong here.

The last straw is when Mum says, her voice falsely bright, “You haven’t touched your eggs. Is something wrong?”

“Yeah,” Molly says, pushing her plate away. “With _you_.”

“Molly—”

“Seriously, Mum,” she says. “What’s wrong? And _don’t_ say nothing, because it’s obviously _something_. You’re a total space-case this morning.”

For half a second, Mum looks frustrated and pained. Then she takes a deep breath and her expression smooths out.

She did that—the face blanking—all the time in the first few weeks after Dad’s funeral. Seeing it again now is like a punch in the gut.

“You’re right,” she says, all Britishly composed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t sleep very well, that’s all.”

Uh huh. “Then why get up? Why not try for better sleep?”

Mum’s smile is painfully fake. “I wanted to see you off to school.”

“Two hours before I leave?” Molly asks skeptically.

“Is it so wrong that I want to spend time with my daughter?” Mum asks.

“This early? Yeah.” The same old fear rises in her chest again. “I heard you come in super late.” After which Mum apparently slept badly enough to forget everything from Ian’s ingrained dickishness to Molly’s dislike for eggs. “Did—did the doctor—?”

She can’t get the words out, which is frustrating, but more worrisome is that Mum isn’t jumping in to reassure her. For all that she’s been freaking about this for _ages_ , she only had to actually ask the question once. Every time since then, Mum has interrupted to answer firmly in the negative before she got past the fifth word.

Today, Mum’s quiet. Just waiting her out.

Not good. Not good at all.

The doorbell interrupts Molly’s struggle, and—shamefully relieved—she seizes the distraction with both hands.

“Finally,” she says, scrambling out of her seat. “Reinforcements.”

Mum is slower to stand. She looks kind of alarmed. “What—”

“I called in your boyfriend,” Molly tells her, unashamed. “Figured if you don’t wanna admit to me what’s wrong, maybe you’d tell him.”

(And if it’s what Molly fears, he can then take his gun and pay that doctor creep a visit.)

For a second, Mum’s stunned. Then her expression furrows into an anger that might just be building into _you are so grounded, Margaret Grace_.

Time for a strategic withdrawal.

“Gotta jet, school and all, love you, bye Mum,” she rattles off, darting around the table—pausing to kiss Mum’s cheek, of course—and to the door. She snags her backpack off the couch on the way, shoves her feet into her trainers as she unlocks the door, and is outside before Mum can more than step out of the kitchen.

She nearly mows down her reinforcements.

“In a rush, Molls?” he asks, steadying her. His voice is light, but his face is all worried lines. She probably freaked him out with the alarmed livetexting during breakfast, but so much the better—Mum won’t be able to trick him into thinking she’s fine.

And speak of the devil, those are definitely her footsteps coming up behind Molly.

“Sure am,” she says hurriedly. “Education’s important, y’know. Later!”

She kisses his cheek (not something she usually does, whoops, but she’s in a rush here), ducks around him, and books it to the stairs. To her relief, Mum doesn’t come chasing after her. She doesn’t even call after her. Molly might just escape this without a grounding.

Before she’s out of earshot, though, she does hear Mum choke out a shocked-sounding kind of, “ _Will?_ ”

“No,” Molly mutters to herself. “I called your _other_ boyfriend.”

There is something _so_ up with her. Molly can only hope it’s not what she fears—and that, if it _is_ , Will is the kinda guy she thinks he is. The kind who avenges his girlfriend’s hurts and then sticks around to comfort her after, rather than bailing because he can’t deal.

Mum’s been through enough already. If Will hurts her, too, well…

Molly’s pretty sure Dad’s old gun is still in the safe, and she _does_ know the combination.

1010101

Plugging in to find that her Framework self has a preteen daughter was an unpleasant shock. Discovering that her Framework self is dating _Will_ is more along the lines of being struck by lightning.

The LMD version of Fitz did call this a perfect world, but she didn’t expect…

“Jem?” Will asks, handsome face creased in concern.

He looks so different. In part because he’s got stubble rather than a full beard, he’s clean, and is wearing clothes that aren’t tattered from more than a decade of wear and tear, but mostly—

He’s so _strong_. Well-fed and tanned, not scrawny and pale like the malnourished man she met on another planet. Here in this perfect world, Will has never known the deprivation and misery of Maveth.

But even without that, they’re still together. He may not be the father of her daughter, but her daughter trusts him enough to call him when worried about Jemma—and he came at once, because of course he did.

And none of it—not the daughter, not Will, not a single speck of dust in this perfect world—is real.

Jemma rather wants to cry from the injustice of it.

“Jemma?” Will asks again. He’s fully entered the apartment now; he takes her shoulders and studies her face. “Are you okay?”

“Fine.” It comes out sharp and unconvincing, but she’s torn between the conflicting impulses of shoving him away and collapsing into his arms. She takes a deep breath and tries again. “I’m fine.”

Will looks skeptical. Understandably so, as her daughter summoned him here at—she checks the clock—not yet six in the morning.

“I’m fine,” she says yet again. “First I didn’t sleep well, and then I—well, I seem to have frightened Molly. Who in turn frightened you.” She scrubs her hands over her face, trying and failing to shove down everything the sight of him brought welling up inside. She can’t afford to make the program suspicious, but it’s _Will_. Will who was her entire world, who she lost so unfairly. “I’m sorry.”

“Nothing to be sorry for,” Will says, and pulls her hands away from her face. “Molly seemed to think it might’ve been the doctor. Did he…?”

Will’s trailing off is just as ominous as Molly’s visible struggle was. Whoever this ‘doctor’ might be, Jemma’s getting the feeling she doesn’t want to meet him.

“No,” she says. “No, it’s nothing. I promise. Just a bad night.” She smiles up at him as best she can. Even knowing he’s really just a collection of code, it’s impossible to put what she’s feeling aside. All of her grief and longing, every moment she’s spent wishing for him back…

She needs to rendezvous with Daisy, but she also needs to play along with the life she has here. Brushing him off and rushing out will only make him—and with him, the Framework itself—suspicious.

There’s no harm in it, then, if she spends a few hours with him, is there? To keep her cover…she can savor one last morning with Will, can’t she?

It will hurt all the more when she returns to the real world and faces his death once again, of course. But for the moment? For these few, precious hours?

For now, she wraps her arms around his neck and suggests, very innocently, “Perhaps I might sleep better with company.”

Will’s answering grin sends matching pangs of desire and grief through her. When his arms wrap around her in return—when one hand falls to squeeze her rear as the other weaves through her hair, as happened so often in those dreary caves—it’s easy to push the grief aside. To let go of her fear and confusion, the heartache of a not-real daughter, the lingering question of the photograph on the refrigerator of Jemma and Molly at a beach with _Grant Ward_ , of all people.

When Will kisses her, she forgets everything but him.

1010101

Jemma gets three glorious hours with Will before the chime of his phone brings them both unpleasantly back to Earth. (Or the Framework, rather.)

“Is something wrong?” she asks when he rolls over to check it.

“No,” he says, “but I’m gonna be late for work if I don’t get a move on.” Propped up on one elbow, he hesitates. “You want me to call in sick?”

Yes. Desperately.

But he’s not the only one who has work to do. Daisy must be missing her by now, and her team is counting on her. This interlude, wonderful as it was, was selfish enough. Leaving the others to languish in brainwashed captivity indefinitely while she savors the memory of a dead man would be downright cruel.

“No,” she says, “thank you. I’m feeling much better now.”

She allows herself one last, lingering kiss—imprinting every second, every sensation, into her mind—and then reluctantly rolls away.

“You’re sure?” Will asks, still hesitating.

“Positive.” Before she can talk herself out of it, she gets up, putting some distance between them. “We can’t laze around all day, lovely though it would be. I have work to do myself.”

“Okay,” he says. “If you’re sure.”

She’s really not, but forces herself to hold her tongue. The others, she reminds herself. Daisy. The _real_ world, in which Radcliffe is no doubt plotting something awful with all the team indisposed.

No one can afford for her to be selfish any longer.

So she dresses, and lets Will get dressed, and lets him leave her with one more kiss at the door. She answers his “See you tonight,” with a smile and a wave and doesn’t cry at all, not even after she closes the door behind him.

It’s only a program, but the heartbreak is amazingly convincing. Perhaps she’ll congratulate Radcliffe on his work before she punches him in the face for it.

1010101

An hour later, Jemma meets Daisy at their rendezvous point and—once hugs and relief and explanations have been exchanged—makes a terrible mistake.

“Are you sure?” Daisy asks, hovering at her shoulder as she digs up the device Daisy coded in for them before they entered the program. “You know I had zero ways to test that, right? I can’t even kind of promise it’s safe.”

“We don’t have a choice,” Jemma reminds her. “With the backdoor broken—”

“Sabotaged,” Daisy interjects, following it with a muttered, “Fucking Radcliffe.”

“With the backdoor _sabotaged_ ,” Jemma amends obligingly, “we don’t know how long we’re going to be stuck here. If we want to keep the program from becoming suspicious, we need more intel.” She studies the remote she’s unearthed with no little unease. “And I need to be able to convince my daughter that nothing’s wrong.”

“Simmons.” Daisy’s hand covers hers, hiding the remote. “You know she’s not real.”

“I do,” Jemma agrees, “which is why I need to convince her—”

“No,” Daisy interrupts. “I mean…she’s not real, but once you activate your Framework memories—assuming the completely untested program doesn’t kill you—she’s gonna _feel_ real. It’s gonna feel like she’s actually your daughter. And once we go back to the real world…”

She trails off, but Jemma doesn’t need to be a genius (for all that she _is_ ) to fill in the blanks.

Once they leave the Framework, she won’t just have to mourn the love of her life again. She’ll also have to mourn a daughter—a daughter who never truly existed, of whom she’ll have no photographs or mementos.

“I know,” she says, and gently brushes Daisy’s hand away. “But we don’t have a choice.”

At this point, Jemma’s well accustomed to grief. What’s one more burden on her heart?

Before Daisy can offer any further protest, she hits the button and splits her skull open.

Well, not truly. But for several long, agonizing minutes, it feels as though she has. That or had a spike driven directly through her brain. Having now experienced both, she can say with confidence that having all of her Framework self’s thoughts, memories, and feelings downloaded into her mind mid-program is actually _worse_ than torture.

Or at least, she _could_ say it, were she not so busy screaming.

When the shattering, blinding pain finally fades, she finds herself on the ground, with a worried Skye hovering above her.

“Oh thank god,” Sk— _Daisy_ —breathes. “Can you hear me? Simmons?”

“Wa—” Jemma nearly bites through her tongue, but at least manages to stop the automatic correction of _Ward_ in the process. Disgust and grief war within her—one from her real self, horrified at the thought of _marrying Ward_ , and the other from her Framework self, still mourning the death of her (disgusting) husband. “Yes. I hear you.”

Daisy slumps in relief, briefly resting her forehead against Jemma’s.

“I was so scared I’d killed you,” she says, a little tearfully, and then sits back. “Are you okay? Still a genius?”

Jemma laughs—just a little, as her head is still throbbing. “Still a genius. Help me up.”

Slowly, carefully, the two of them together manage to lever Jemma onto the bench.

“That,” she says, breathlessly, once they have, “was unpleasant.”

“Yeah,” Daisy agrees. “It looked—and sounded—it.”

“Yeah.”

Even knowing they don’t have any time to waste—this world isn’t quite as perfect as she thought this morning; Hydra is in control here, and is likely wondering why she hasn’t shown up to work by now—Jemma takes a moment to lean back against the bench, resting her aching head for a moment.

“Did it work?” Daisy asks after a second. “You remember everything? Your daughter?”

Does she ever. Just the word brings up so much—memories of pregnancy, of the baby kicking and turning within her; that night at the hospital, holding her for the first time, looking into her sweet, tiny face; crying at her first dance recital because she was getting so _big_ —

“Yes,” Jemma says, quite hoarsely. “I remember everything.”

Including why Molly gave her such a look over breakfast. She’s been off eggs for years—since the first morning after Grant—after _Ward_ —died, when she spat out the scrambled egg Jemma had made and said, quite miserably, that it was “not as good as Dad’s.”

And Grant—

No. No. Jemma absolutely _refuses_ to mourn Grant Ward. Absolutely not. For one thing, he’s a traitor and a monster. For another, he’s unfortunately not even _dead_. She will _not_ shed a single tear for his awful Framework self.

And she will not hold his death against Fitz, for all that her Framework self was completely convinced he murdered him in order to get at her. (That’s another question answered— _Fitz_ is the mysterious doctor, who has been obsessed with Jemma for years, and Molly and Will both feared that he had assaulted her in some way. That danger is apparently very real.)

(She won’t hold it against him. She won’t.)

“We should get moving,” she says, forcing her eyes open. “We have to find the others.”

Even as she says it, another memory slots into place—quite a surprising one.

“Right,” Daisy agrees, pushing to her feet. “But…where do we even start?”

“With Coulson.” Jemma accepts the hand up Daisy offers and, after a pause, is pleased to find her balance steady. “As it happens, he’s Molly’s history teacher.”

“Wow,” Daisy says. “Small world.”

“Quite.”

1010101

Of course it can’t be as simple as that. Going to fetch Coulson turns into running from Hydra turns into finding out Daisy’s partner ( _new_ partner; her old partner was Grant, which is how Jemma knew her in this world and why she keeps having to catch herself before she can call her Skye) is a SHIELD mole, which then turns into running even _harder_ from Hydra.

Eventually, they do make it to SHIELD’s base—via a roundabout trip that frustrates Jemma even _before_ it turns out that the Framework SHIELD is based out of the Playground, which she and Daisy easily could have traveled to on their own.

They’re met by a grim Mace with even grimmer news, however, which quickly erases all thoughts of the inconvenience from Jemma’s mind.

“Hydra’s already ID’d you two as subversives,” he tells them, though his eyes remain fixed on Jemma. “And I’m sorry, Dr. Ward, but your daughter and Will Daniels have been taken into custody.”

Jemma’s knees fail her. As though from a great distance, she hears Daisy’s incredulous echo of ‘Dr. _Ward_?’—but she can’t even think to respond. Somehow she comes to be sitting in the lounge, with the journey from the hangar an empty space in between.

Molly and Will aren’t real. They _aren’t_. They’re just collections of code, one invented wholesale by the Framework and the other pulled from her memories. They don’t have thoughts or feelings or lives, not really.

Yet her heart refuses to be swayed by logic. All she can think is that her daughter—her baby, her sweet Molly—is in trouble. That _Will_ , the man she loves, is in trouble. That she’s already lost her husband and she’s about to lose the rest of her world, too.

Hydra has never been kind. They’ll suffer before they die, and it will be all Jemma’s fault.

“We’ll send a team after them, of course,” Mace is saying when she finally, through some measure of strength, wrenches her thoughts back to the present. “But I can’t make any promises.”

Molly and Will aren’t real. Jemma should tell Mace not to bother—to concentrate SHIELD’s incredibly limited resources on finding their way home. There are actual, living members of her team in need of rescue, Mace included.

She _should_ tell him not to bother. Instead, she says, “Thank you,” through her tears.

1010101

It was a mistake to download her Framework self’s memories. The rescue attempt fails.

Jemma thought she had mourned Will as much as she could. She thought an extra measure of grief for a lost daughter would be bearable.

As it happens, she was wrong on both counts.

0101010

The Russian jackass calling himself _The Superior_ is such a pain, Grant’s more than happy to kill him twice.

By the fifth time, though, it’s just getting irritating.

“How many of these—” he ducks a wild swing and takes advantage of the opening to shove a knife in Less-than-Superior-#6’s gut—“fucking things are there, anyway?”

“Too many,” is Ortilla’s annoyed answer.

“ _One_ was too many,” Hicks adds, equally annoyed. “This is fucking ridic— _ow_ , you bastard!”

Grant can’t take his eyes off his own robot opponent to check, but he’s guessing by the muttered complaints that follow that whatever kind of hit Hicks took, it wasn’t fatal. His people don’t whine over serious wounds.

They do whine in general, though.

Even the perpetually cheerful Aldridge is sick of the endless stream of the same stupid face. “Any day now, Larissa!”

“Don’t look at me,” Repin says. Unlike the rest of them, she’s unruffled—but then, she’s three hundred miles away, safe behind her desk at Nemesis, and not dealing with Invasion of the Ugly Robots, Part II. “Data download’s complete. It’s up to SHIELD now.”

“Shit,” Ortilla groans. “That’s never what you wanna hear.”

“The last time it was up to—hey, watch the jacket!—SHIELD, they had to come to _us_ for help,” Aldridge says. “I’m not holding my breath.”

Grant grunts his own annoyed agreement, but doesn’t spare the effort to speak; number eight’s proving surprisingly tough. So does number nine, who gets in a lucky graze on Grant’s right side, and number ten, who slices a path open on Grant’s face.

By the time Repin chimes back in, three “superiors” later, Grant’s ready to burn all of Russia to the ground to punish the whole damn country for birthing such an annoying prick.

“Director!” she calls, voice slightly elevated. “We got the signal—they’re out.”

“Fucking finally,” Grant says and, with great relief, hits the EMP.

Around them, the legion of Russians collapses. The lights go out, too, but they came prepared for that—Aldridge and Ortilla are already activating their chem lights.

“Well,” Hicks says dryly. “That was fun.”

“Not,” Ortilla grumbles, kicking one of the downed robots.

Honestly, Grant’s right there with them, but—

“Come on,” he says. “This next part _is_ gonna be fun.”

He’s talking, of course, about the looks that’ll be on the team’s faces when they see him—and then the even _better_ looks that’ll follow when they find out that Simmons and Skye (or Daisy, whatever) actually _came to him for help_. Coulson won’t know whether to be more horrified or disappointed; it’ll be great.

Bonus: as they follow the path Repin marked out for them based on the Framework’s weird signal before the mission, they can hear alarmed shouting. The team’s already ruffled, which means Grant’s arrival will be that much more of a kick.

“—know what the hell we’re gonna do about this!” someone is shouting when they reach the room. The voice isn’t really familiar, which means it probably belongs to the big guy whose name Grant never bothered to learn. It’s in a file somewhere, he’s sure, but who cares?

Although, hell, maybe Grant’ll make the effort to learn and remember it now, because that’s just a perfect opening right there.

“No need to worry,” he announces as he steps through the open hatch. “The cavalry’s here.”

…Oh, yeah. That’s the stuff. Their faces are _beautiful_.

“Hi, guys,” he adds cheerfully. “Miss me?”

May’s clinging to a weird…bed-shaped thing leaning against the wall, obviously unsteady on her feet, but she looks about ready to throw herself across the distance between them for a chance at Grant. She’s even kind of snarling a little. It’s amazing.

Coulson, on the other hand, just looks tired. “Ward. What are you doing here?”

“What else?” he asks, spreading his hands and plastering on a (very convincing, if he does say so himself) hurt look. “I’m here to help out my old friends. Heard you got kidnapped by a crazy robot; that’s rough.”

“This is the part where you say ‘thank you,’” Aldridge offers helpfully. “Especially since—”

She cuts herself off for the same reason Grant was about to stop her: there’s someone moving in the next room. Maybe Fitz, who’s missing from the collection here, but also maybe the crazy robot chick who kidnapped them in the first place. Grant jerks his head, and Ortilla and Hicks slip away.

“Especially since _what_?” the big guy bites out.

“Especially,” Aldridge picks back up like she never paused, “since Johnson was so rude when she asked for our help.”

As expected, that makes their faces even _better_ —but Grant doesn’t get long to enjoy it before a sharp gasp draws his attention back to the doorway to the next room.

There’s a girl—twelve, maybe thirteen—standing there beside Ortilla. She’s got loose dark hair, a grey cotton robe, and a look on her face like all her dreams have come true at once. And she’s staring straight at Grant.

“Dad?” she breathes. “You—you’re—?”

…She’s calling _him_ Dad.

Okay.

Well.

He darts a glance at the team, decides they’re just as shocked as he is, and puts on a smile for the obviously disturbed little girl. Hopefully the still sluggishly bleeding cut on his face doesn’t ruin the effect.

“I’m…?” he prompts teasingly.

“You’re _alive_ ,” she sobs, and then throws herself at him in a desperate hug.

Before Grant can decide what to do about the strange kid crying all over him (beyond hug her back, that is; he’s a villain, not a _monster_ ), Coulson recovers from his own shock.

“Molly, no,” he says, very sternly. “I’m sorry, but that’s not your father.”

“Step away from him,” May adds. It looks like she’s getting her feet back; conveniently, Grant’s got a very nice shield in the form of a crying little girl who’s definitely not listening to either one of them. “Right now.”

Ortilla—after giving Grant a _you want me to divest you of your new limpet_ kind of look and receiving his head shake in return—smartly activates his comm. (Coughing up for the kind that comes shielded against EMP blasts was a bitch and a half, but definitely worth it.)

“Hey, Repin,” Ortilla says lowly. “You get anything on a Molly in that download?”

“And/or anything about the Director being dead,” Aldridge adds with a frown.

After a pause, Repin says, “It looks like the Director was killed approximately three years ago, program time. He left behind…an adopted daughter, Margaret ‘Molly’ Ward, and a wife.” She clears her throat a little awkwardly. “Jemma Simmons Ward.”

Later, Grant’s gonna have a _lot_ of fun with him and Simmons being married in the Framework. (She must’ve been furious.) For now, he’s a little more concerned with his hysterically crying virtual daughter. Who somehow is not virtual anymore.

“Answers?” he asks the room at large. “Anyone?”

In the strained silence that follows, Hicks’ voice comes over the comm.

“I got a guy in here,” Hicks says. “Unconscious. Doesn’t look familiar, but he’s wearing the same robe as the kid. I’m sending you a pic, Repin—see if you can ID him.”

“On it,” Repin says.

SHIELD can’t hear what’s happening over the comms; it remains dead silent in the room during that little exchange. After another minute of it, Coulson sighs.

“Aida used the Framework to make herself human,” he offers, very begrudgingly. “She must have done the same for Molly.”

…Well that just brings up _more_ questions.

His chances of getting an honest answer from the team, though, are pretty slim. And in the meantime—

“Got it,” Repin says. “His name’s Will Daniels. He must be another implant from the Framework; file says the real one died last year. In the Framework…” She pauses and clears her throat, somehow more awkwardly than before. “Uh. He and Dr. Simmons-Ward were dating.”

“Seriously?” Grant mutters. “She only waited three years to start dating again?”

Rude.

That’ll bear addressing later, but for now…

“What’s the ETA on the Zephyr?” he asks. All the SHIELD agents in the room tense. It’s kind of adorable.

“Ten minutes,” Repin reports.

“Okay,” Grant says, and looks down at Molly. She’s still clinging to him and still crying—honestly, he’s starting to worry her hitching breaths are about to become hyperventilating. “Hey, sweetheart.”

She clings tighter and doesn’t answer.

“Molly,” he says. He tries to put himself in her shoes, imagine how he’d feel if John suddenly came back to life…but John would sooner shoot him than let him cling and cry like this. Grant’s got nothing. “Sweetheart, I’m sorry. I know you must have a lot of questions and you deserve answers. But they need to happen elsewhere, okay?”

May takes a step forward at that. “If you think we’re letting you take her anywhere—”

Grant ignores her. Aldridge and Ortilla are already moving into positions with their guns raised.

“Come on,” he says, rubbing Molly’s back gently. “I’m not going anywhere without you, I promise. But we need to get out of here.”

That, finally, gets her to look up at him. Even knowing she’s not really his—that she was virtual just a few hours ago, that even in the Framework she was adopted—the sight of her tearstained face hits him right in the gut.

Screw logic. This is definitely his kid.

“You promise?” she asks hoarsely. There’s just the tiniest hint of a British accent to her voice—Simmons’ influence, no doubt. “You won’t—won’t leave again?”

The break in her voice just about kills him. He’s gonna have to find out who killed him in the Framework and kill their real-world counterpart, get some vengeance on Molly’s behalf.

“I promise,” he says. “Cross my heart.”

Molly sniffles and wipes at her face. “Okay. Where are we going?”

“Somewhere safe,” he says, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. “Come on. Your mom’ll meet us there.”

There are protests from the team, of course, but they’re all unarmed—and weak from days unconscious, besides. It’ll be easy enough to lose them in the maze of hallways here.

And while the big guy is scoffing over the idea of Simmons meeting him anywhere—well, he must not know what Grant knows. Repin was watching the code the whole time Simmons and Skye were in the Framework, and if she’s right, the girls activated that failsafe of theirs. Meaning that Simmons is gonna have real memories of their fake daughter—and their fake marriage.

No chance she doesn’t come running to him the second she hears he’s got Molly.

“Let’s go,” Grant says, and leads the way out of the room. Molly stays locked in step with him, close enough she actually treads on his boot twice in five seconds.

Poor kid, she’s traumatized. He doesn’t imagine finding out how different this world is will help any.

He’s definitely killing that crazy robot chick over this.

“What about the guy?” Hicks asks over the comm. “He’s starting to come around.”

“Leave him,” he orders.

With any luck, Simmons’ll come running to him _before_ she finds out her space boyfriend is real, too. And if not, well…she got over Daniels’ death once already.

She can do it again.


End file.
